KU law students take on inmates' appeal cases

LAWRENCE — Kaiti Smith and Tyler Dumler, both law students at The University of Kansas, are gathering DNA and other evidence to see if their clients have been wrongly convicted.

Smith, 25, of Wichita, and Dumler, 24, of Montezuma, are part of the university’s School of Law’s Project for Innocence and Post-Conviction Remedies, which focuses on representing state and federal prisoners who may not have been given a fair trial.

In the past 18 months, the students have won at least 13 reversals of conviction for their clients.

Smith is representing Floyd Bledsoe, who is serving a life sentence for the 1999 slaying of his 14-year-old sister-in-law near Oskaloosa, while Dumler’s client is Lyle Sanders, who was convicted for first-degree murder in the mid-1990s in Wichita.

“They are older cases that have gone through appeals,” Dumler said.

At the time the cases were prosecuted, PCR-DQ alpha strip testing was used to evaluate DNA evidence, which often had inconclusive results, he said. Consequently, the cases are being reviewed using more advanced DNA methods to determine if inconsistencies are present.

In addition, Dumler and Smith are talking to DNA experts, going through police transcripts and records and making sure all evidence is reviewed in their cases.

“The hours logged in this (Bledsoe) case are huge,” Smith said.

Jean Phillips, clinical professor and director of the Project for Innocence, said the clinic legal education program was started in 1965 by former law school professor Paul E. Wilson, who saw a need for incarcerated individuals to have access to legal services.

Initially, students in the program provided services to state and federal inmates in prisons in Leavenworth and Lansing. Over the years, the program evolved into a clinic focusing on post-conviction and appellate work.

“We've done thousands of cases,” Phillips said.

The Project for Innocence receives more than 200 letters each year from inmates seeking assistance. The students and their supervisory staff attorneys review the cases to determine if they can provide services.

Factors that play into that decision might include whether the inmate is indigent, statute of limitations status, unanswered questions about the evidence or ineffective assistance of counsel.

“We're the only opportunity for many of them,” she said.

Once a case is accepted, it doesn’t guarantee the students will end up litigating the case. That decision is made after students investigate the case — track down court records, talk to witnesses and attorneys in the case, interview the client and re-evaluate the evidence — to determine the existence of new evidence or ineffective counsel.

“In the vast majority of cases, the relief we get is a new trial,” Phillips said, adding that a few clients have been released from prison.

Students coming into the clinic often continue work done by previous participants.

Phillips said the students can present the case in court if they have 60 hours of law school credit, are in good standing, meet requirements for a student practice license and have a supervisory attorney with them during the proceedings.

Funding for the Project for Innocence comes from private donations and the law school.

Law student Alyssa Boone, 25, Wichita, said her experience with the Project for Innocence has reinforced the reasons she entered law school. Boone is working on a case involving Frederick Umoja, a civil rights worker wrongly convicted of third-degree robbery by an all-white jury in the 1970s in Wichita.

To avoid imprisonment, Umoja fled to Africa, where he has worked as a social activist for nearly 41 years. Umoja was granted clemency, and Boone is now helping him with administrative issues related to his living in the United States.

“It gives you a big-picture idealistic view of what you can do in the legal field,” Boone said, “and it was life-changing for him.”

The most difficult cases the students take on are inmates accused of child sex offenses. Britt Lagemann, 25, of Olathe, is representing Jon Paul Ulate, who was incarcerated in 2008 at the Winfield Correctional Facility for aggravated indecent liberties with a child. Her investigation of the case revealed the interview techniques used with the child were problematic.

“Everybody’s heart goes out to the child, but you have to come to it as objective as possible,” Lagemann said. “You have to leave all you know behind so you don’t make snap judgments or bring in emotion.”

Phillips said she tries to convey to students that every person has the right to be protected.

“The only way to get to the truth is to have rights on both sides,” Phillips said. “If rights don’t exist for the guilty person, it doesn’t exist for the innocent person.”

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